A television is an ideal medium to consume media. Televisions tend to be the largest device a person may own. In addition to television programs, the television may serve other media, such as news, photos, Internet sourced videos and the like.
Televisions may be augmented with an Internet enabling device. The Internet enabling device accesses various data providers to retrieve data to be presented on the television. The various data providers may be a news server, a photo server, or may data providing services. The Internet enabling device may be separate and discrete from the television, or may be integrated into a television design.
The Internet enabling device may access a centralized server that retrieves data from the data providers to serve to the television. The centralized server may serve data to the television based on a user's preferences. For example, the user may register certain preferences, and based on the preferences registered, data from the data providers may be retrieved to serve on the television. Alternatively, the centralized server may access the user's preferences automatically.
The television, through the Internet enabling device, may present the data retrieved from the centralized server in a slideshow fashion. For example, a user who indicates an enjoyment of nature may be presented with various pictures of national parks. Additionally, the slideshow may contain information associated with nature, such as news events and other Internet related recommendations.
The television presentation may be augmented with a content identification (‘content-id’) capability. The content-id automatically detects the program being watched by the user. The content-id may perform this task by performing a visual, audio or digital detection of the program being served by the television.
While watching television, user's also may access a portable device on their person, such as a smart phone, a tablet or a personal computer. The portable device is interactive in nature, and allows the user to share and process information.